Documentary puts Harold Jones on trial for Jack the Stripper crimes

Despite the huge difficulties in unmasking the man who got away with the murder of at least six women in 1960s London so long after the event, efforts are still ongoing in 2017 to unravel this chilling mystery.

Since the publication of The Hunt for the 60s’ Ripper in July, I’ve been in touch with author Neil Milkins. In his 2011 book Who Was Jack the Stripper? he makes an interesting case for Harold jones, a child sex killer, having been the guilty man.

My own feeling is that the case against Jones is circumstantial. However, in researching my book I did come across one tantalising new connection between Jones and the 1960s investigation.

This has helped to spur Neil into pushing on with more research on the case and assistance in a new documentary,

Harold Jones teenage killer

As a 15 year old, Jones had callously murdered two girls in his home town of Abertillery in the 1920s. He eventually pleaded guilty because he would have turned 16 by the time of his trial and been eligible for hanging.

Owing to a ludicrously indulgent prison governor, Jones was released from prison in 1941, despite his lack of remorse for his crimes. There was a presumption that he would join the armed forces and contribute to the war effort, which he never did.

Kim Rossmo

Thanks to Neil’s research, it seems Jones turned up in west London, where he married and had a daughter. During the height of the manhunt for the Nude Killer, who murdered six prostitutes in 1964-65 and left their unclothed bodies in locations around west London, it seems Jones was living under the noses of detectives.

For my own book, I was lucky enough to interview Dr Kim Rossmo, a leading geographic profiler. He had created a computer program that can analyse data based on a series of crimes, travel routes and other local information to produce geographic hotspots revealing where a perpetrator lives, works or has some connection.

Geo-profile hotspots in west London

He conducted such an analysis for me in The Hunt for the 60s’ Ripper (Mirror Books). This suggests two hotspots in west London where he thinks the killer may have had a base.

One is around Hammersmith and the other covers Holland Park/Notting Hill.

The significance of this is that Harold Jones – as Neil Milkins has shown – was living in Aldensley Road. This is right in the middle of the Hammersmith hotspot. But Jones never appears to have come under suspicion during what was the biggest manhunt in police history up to that time.

What would detectives have discovered about Jones?

Again, this doesn’t prove Jones was the killer. But it does raise the question… What if detectives had been able to narrow their focus to these hotspots?

Instead of being spread so thinly across 24 square miles of west London, they might have realised they had a cold-blooded psycho right in the murder zone.

They could have interviewed and checked out his movements and lifestyle very closely. So, he may or may not be Jack the Stripper… but on the other hand we know nothing at all about him at this time.

Appeal for contributors to documentary

Anyway, here is Neil’s alert about a new programme that sets out to examine Jones’s potential guilt for the Nude Murders.

Top British criminologist Professor David Wilson will be filming for a television documentary at The Metropole Theatre, Abertillery, on Sunday, 19 November, 3pm. The plan is to fill the theatre with members of the public. He is seeking ex-Abertillery detectives, ex-Abertillery police officers, and ex-Abertillery magistrates to work along with top British criminologists, pathologists, geographic analysts, ground-penetrating radar experts etc. As I understand it there will be a mock jury listening to the links between Harold Jones and the nude murders and will be asked if they believe that on the balance of probabilities Jones was the killer. I believe that Professor Wilson has some surprises up his sleeve…